Word bucket challenge

September 27th, 2015

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. It is called The Chaos, and was originally written by the Dutch writer Gerard Nolst Trenité (a.k.a. Charivarius). He wanted to prove the extreme irregularity of English language. His chef-d'oeuvre contains over 800 nightmarish to spell/pronounce words. We are inviting you to challenge your patience and tongue with reading out loud this hard nut to crack!

Enjoy the ‘almost correct’ version recited by the youtuber Jimmy Jams here:

By the way, the author’s intention was to use the text as an exercise for English students. It first appeared as an appendix to the author’s 1920 textbook Drop Your Foreign Accent: engelsche uitspraakoefeningen. The Chaos represents a mammoth catalogue of the most notorious irregularities of traditional English orthography, skillfully versified into couplets with alternating feminine and masculine rhymes. With English today the prime language of international communication, it constitutes no less of a problem than the unpredictability of sound-symbol correspondence which is so bewailed by native speakers of English. Finally, here goes that lovely poem – an utter word bucket challenge: